New Bedford company sweetens deal for Cape trash

Friday

Competition for Cape Cod's trash is continuing to drive down the potential cost of dumping it.

Competition for Cape Cod's trash is continuing to drive down the potential cost of dumping it.

Zero Waste Solutions, a joint venture of companies located in New Bedford and on the Cape, has announced a new offer of $55 per ton to accept solid waste at a new facility being built in Rochester.

Cape towns that have already signed with Zero Waste — Mashpee and Wellfleet — will receive the new price, said Dan Balboni, sales and marketing manager for ABC Disposal Service Inc., which has teamed up with New Bedford Waste Services LLC and WERC-2 Inc. of Pocasset on the venture.

"We're not going to hurt them for signing with us early," Balboni said.

In addition, the price would be fixed for the first two years of the contract, he said. After that it would go up 2.5 percent per year.

The new facility, which will feature a photovoltaic array on its roof, a process to separate recycling from solid waste and a technology to manufacture fuel briquettes out of much of the remaining trash, has received its necessary permits and is expected to be in operation by the end of the summer, Balboni said.

Previously, Zero Waste had offered a price of $60 per ton but dropped that figure by $5 in emails and letters sent out to all of the Cape towns over the past week, Balboni said.

Zero Waste is vying for the lucrative trash contracts other Cape towns have with Covanta Energy, which operates the SEMASS waste-to-energy facility, also located in Rochester, where the majority of the Cape's trash is hauled by rail. Most of the contracts with SEMASS, which run at about $37.50 per ton, are set to expire at the end of 2014, and the two competitors have been pitching towns furiously over the past year.

As Cape towns contemplate how to pay for the inevitable increase in the cost of dumping the region's garbage, the final number could have a significant impact on the bottom line for area residents.

Covanta has dropped its disposal price from $65 to $60 per ton in response to the competition from Zero Waste but does not appear willing to go further.

"The tipping fee is $60," said Thomas Cipolla, business manager for SEMASS. "We're not going to go below that."

Covanta's price would increase by 2.5 percent each year after the first year.

Instead, Covanta expects to offer value through the transportation — for which both waste-disposal organizations charge extra — and bundling of services it offers, Cipolla said. And although Covanta may not be able to match Zero Waste's price, it offers a proven track record, Cipolla said.

"Sometimes there's a price to pay for reliability and dependability," he said.

Sandwich and Brewster already have signed deals with Covanta.

Brewster, which originally signed a deal for $70 per ton, is expected to receive the $60 per ton rate, and Sandwich, which signed for $65 per ton, will be "made whole" based on the new rate, Cipolla said.

Covanta is signing an agreement today with Yarmouth to take over operations of the regional transfer station on Forest Road, as well as for a new disposal contract, he said. The transfer station is connected by rail to SEMASS.

Cipolla said he couldn't say what the cost for transportation would be for each town, but currently, for example, the town of Dennis pays $15 per ton to rail its trash off-Cape.

"We would anticipate offering it at a considerable discount below that rate," Cipolla said.

Yarmouth's potential deal with Covanta is key to getting the town out of a rail-hauling contract with Massachusetts Coastal Railroad that last year cost $150,000 in penalties because a minimum amount of trash was not met. Covanta had offered to pay Yarmouth $3 per ton of trash that moves through the facility to operate the transfer station.

Zero Waste has offered Yarmouth a transportation rate of $13 per ton as well as a deal to take over operations of the transfer station for which Zero Waste would pay the town $3.50 per ton of trash transferred through the facility, Balboni said.

Under the transportation contracts, trash from the Cape would be hauled to Rochester by compressed natural gas trucks during off-peak hours to avoid creating more congestion, according to a Dec. 18 letter to Yarmouth officials.

Transportation costs for other towns would vary, Balboni said.

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